Kukla's Korner Hockey

Josh Harding's charity for multiple sclerosis, "Harding's Hope," took home $40,000 (as did David Clarkson's children's charity) after the conclusion of the NHLPA's charity golf classic in Toronto on Tuesday (which, oddly enough, included former NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow), and harding addressed his battle with MS while speaking with the Canadian Press's Stephen Whyno:

"I felt great," Harding said in an interview Monday. "I almost feel better. I've really put my mind to this — not that I wasn't before — but I know I've worked so hard to get to where I'm at."

That's not to say Harding's life has been easy since being diagnosed in October. He has had to pay closer attention to his body when he feels tired and needs to plan his schedule around medications and more.

"In the summer I didn't know how much the heat would affect me. I came to realize that it makes me pretty fatigued," Harding said. "I've just got to be careful about things and know my body and learn and always just be thinking about what's best for my health."

Harding is trying to balance taking care of himself and promoting his new charity. Tuesday he attended the NHLPA's tournament at Glen Abbey Golf Club, which was set to raise $100,000 for various player charities, with the winning team getting $40,000.

Harding's team included Brodziak, Wild defenceman Tom Gilbert, New York Rangers goaltender Martin Biron and forward Dominic Moore, New York Islanders forward Cal Clutterbuck and former Minnesota goaltender Dwayne Roloson.

Continued, and while we're talking about the NHLPA members who took part in the golf classic, Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa spoke with the Toronto Sun's Lance Hornby about the changes and challenges his Canucks face this upcoming season, and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr made some intriguing comments as well:

Fehr was not raised on hockey but the game seems to have grown on him. And now that the delicate negotiations for the NHL to go to the Sochi Olympics are done, Fehr has bought into the idea of using the global platform to plant it in non-traditional countries.

“This is an extraordinary product,” Fehr said. “It has cross-ocean appeal and I think it has worldwide appeal. You see things in this game you don’t see anywhere else, because the players are moving so much faster in a much smaller defined area. It requires the kind of athletic performance you just don’t see other places. What I’m hopeful is that we’re going to be able to demonstrate that to people who don’t follow hockey and it will be the next big thing.”

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Fehr expects that the NHL committee now studying goaltending equipment changes might have something by mid-winter. “In all my years in baseball, no player ever asked me how to train, how I hit a guy and for sure didn’t ask about hockey equipment,” Fehr joked. “But we have a lot of key staff working on it, Mathieu Schneider (NHLPA) and Brendan Shanahan (NHL) are taking a long hard look at all the issues.”